Tales of a Blue Planet
by Xenoka
Summary: A new planet is found, but how was it lost for millions of years? And what dark secrets lie in wait for the party that lands on it?
1. Chapter 1

The astronaut looked watched the window as the sun and Uranus were flying 'below' them. He was a vet in astronomy, he had four badges and the highest rank was five. From his radio a voice suddenly yelled, "Andrews! Come up here and look at this!"

"I'm coming Charles!" Andrews radioed back.

He floated through the air, pushing off against nearby objects in order to move. He was going down a tunnel. A hole was suspended in the air 'above' him. He pushed off from the wall beside him which rotated him by 180 degrees so that his legs pointed down into the hole. He pushed from the roof and went slowly down the hole. The observation deck was merely a non-solid, beamed, cube with five sides made of glass, as the other one housed the hole.

Charles had called him as he had spotted the destination that was unknown by men, and that no one was ready to face yet. The humble crew of Shainghei, of which there were eight, were the first people to come to the new planet. The planet had been spotted only a month ago. No one knew how it had avoided human eyes for so many millions of years but no one put it into consideration.

With all the planets colonized (besides the gas giants and Venus) it should be easy to spot any extra-terrestrial objects within the solar system.

Charles pointed out the window. He pointed exactly where a small blue dot was, it was about as far as Jupiter is from the sun (or so the scientists estimated).

"Look, only 23,000 miles left to go, it'll only last about a day at the most." Exclaimed Charles, as he had only 2 badges and had been to other planets only once, he did many missions with satellites however. He was originally from Pluto in which he was used to extremely cold weather.

"I'll let the commander know about this," Andrews said.

In the commander's deck Amber was looking at the new message sent from Mars. Amber was a very commanding person, especially for women that were in the same job. Ever though she commanded very strictly she was usually a stoic person, with usually no (appearing) liking for anyone in any mission, it seemed she wouldn't care if anyone died, yet no one had yet died from being under her command.

The electronic door to the room opened and Andrews floated it, upside-down compared to Amber. For people who hadn't been in space talking to people that were upside down was a very strange phenomenon, but the people of Shainghei were all used to it.

"Captain, Charles wanted to let you know that we can now see the planet and we are approximately 23,000 miles away."

"Ok, you may go; I'll check it on my console."

Andrews took out his radio and talked to Charles, "I'm going to cryogenically freeze myself, I'm getting nervous and way too impatient." He proceeded to the room that had eight beds with a glass dome over them, these were the freezing chambers, and the other five people on the ship were here sleeping. Andrews laid down on one and everything went black when the glass closed.

As he woke up so did the other astronauts. He went up to the commander's quarters. "Wow, we're so close." He exclaimed, as they were only a few mile away from the new, blue planet.

"We're slowing down our thrusters, we don't know how many gee's the planet has," replied Amber.

Finally the ship was within reach of the gravity of the planet. Norton, a 3 badge physicist-astronomer, took out a strange machine. "Odd, it has the same gravity as Earth!"

Amber quickly replied, "Good, it'll be easier to land as we know exactly how slow to go. The surface below had many craters and many rocks. The ship moved slowly around surveying for a spot to land safely. Once the commander found the spot she slowly let the thrusters calm down to let them slowly advance to the planet's ground. Landing gear popped out of the bottom of the ship and they all looked out the windows with anticipation.

Andrews was the first to get to the door, he pushed the button that operated it, knowing the secrets of the world now stood just behind this airlock door.

Heh, I love cliffhangers don't you? I got the idea of the end a bit from Rendezvous with Rama. Please Review and tell me what to do better!


	2. Chapter 2: The crater

To all that are wondering: no this is not about Naruto, the story was messed up and wouldn't come up anywhere I put it so when I tried Naruto it worked so I kept it here, sorry for the confusion!

Andrews waited as the air pressurized and the door slowly opened. He stared out upon the barren blue waste land that looked similar to Mars. There was a crater nearby that was almost a mile high, and probably around three in diameter.

"Charles, Amber, I think you should see this." He said. When he said Amber instead of commander it must be pretty important.

The two came up from behind him and looked toward the crater. "So what," Amber said, annoyed that he called her for something that was not important at all.

"It's not the crater," Andrews responded, "Look at the slope, it' too straight and level, no misplaced rocks or dirt, this wasn't made by a meteorite."

"So what are you suggesting?" asked Charles

"I'm not too sure really, but I am just implying that this isn't made by a collision of something and the planet."

"Ok, here's the plan," stated Amber, "You five" she pointed toward the five getting out of the ship, "You'll set up a small camp here and us three will survey the, ahem, crater."

The five near the ship started unloading supplies from the ship as Charles, Andrews, and Amber walked up the slowly sloping crater. It took about 15 minutes before they finally reached the top. The astronauts were baffled at what they found. The crater was defiantly not a crater! Instead of sloping like a round semi-sphere this was more of a semi-cylinder.

"Well shall we?" Charles asked, ready to hop right in.

"Wait, lets check on the others," Amber responded. "Is the camp ready? If it is are you ready to respond at any moment?"

After a few straining seconds a voice replied, "Yes, and another yes to the second question."

"Right, Ok, we are going to take a five minute break and then we are using equipment in order to get down the crater."

After the minutes passed they attached cables to the top of the cylinder-like crater. The three slowly descended down the side of the cliff. The cliff was almost 1000 feet high. As the reached the bottom the survey began immediately.

The ground was very smooth, although there were small rocks every couple of feet. They walked to the middle to see if they could find anything that was different about any part of it. They took almost twenty minutes just to get to the center.

"Wow, did you feel that?" Amber exclaimed.

"Feel what?" Andrews asked, now feeling nervous.

"Can't you tell, it's almost only 0.5 gee's!" she said.

"That's odd, but wouldn't being closer to the center actually make it higher?" said Charles befuddled.

But what they found next stopped them all from talking or asking questions. There was a square, exactly 1x1 foot of a black surface. Charles walked up and felt the surface; it was completely smooth and slippery. He took out a hammer from his pouch and hit it gently, but no sound came from it nor did it budge. He hit it again, this time with more force, but to the same conclusion.

"Amber can I get a reading on this?" he asked. Amber took out an instrument in order to check what the strange object was made of.

"It doesn't seem to be made of anything humans have ever come upon." She said.

"Uh oh, we've been out here almost an hour!" Andrews said nervously. Both Amber and Charles looked at him, both scared at how much time they spent already. At this news they all started back to camp, it took a whole hour in order to get to the camp.

"So any luck with finding anything new?" Norton asked as the walked into camp.

"Well we did find that the crater isn't made naturally, and we found a black square, 1x1 feet, but it isn't made of anything we know of." Amber replied, angry as they only found something that made the planet even more strange.

"Well it's about 10 o'clock now, so we should get to sleep," said Norton.

The three astronauts agreed to his plan without any resistance, they were still thinking about the strange things they saw and were tired.

The entire crew went back into the ship to the sleeping quarters and rested for the first night of the new planet, unaware of the phenomenon going on as they slept.

Sorry that I make such short chapters! I'll try to make longer ones from now on, but I can't promise anything as I'm very lazy :P


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